Mammoths on the Move

Lisa Wheeler. Mammoths on the Move. Illustrated by Kurt Cyrus. Harcourt, 2006. ISBN 978-0152-04700-9 $16.00. Ages 4-8.

Imagine tromping through the snow every winter. Fourteen thousand years ago big, hairy mammoths had to travel south in search of warmer weather and a place to survive. Wheeler, with her passion for animals as seen in her famous Fitch the Wolf and Chip the Pig series, does a good job portraying the lives of wooly mammoths and describing in detail the hardships of moving south for the winter. She creates a poetic mood throughout the text making it appealing to young readers. Cyrus uses scratchboard to create texture of the mammoths’ fur and cool watercolor to show movement of the snow and water. Thus, readers can get a deeper understanding of what it would be like to live during a mammoth’s time. Bundle up while jumping into this book and traveling back to the time when mammoths ruled the world.

Allyson Harris, BGSU Student